


Skin

by silkinsilence



Series: Femslash February 2020 [4]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Body Horror, Depersonalization, F/F, Past Relationship(s), Psychological Trauma, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-09
Updated: 2020-02-09
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:48:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22624321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silkinsilence/pseuds/silkinsilence
Summary: ‍⌭ Angela sees her former lover again and finds she can’t get her out from under her skin.‍
Relationships: Moira O'Deorain/Angela "Mercy" Ziegler
Series: Femslash February 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1621666
Comments: 5
Kudos: 36





	Skin

**Author's Note:**

> I guess sort of named after [this song (which is a great song and to which you could listen while you read if you like).](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbJREBZ68Z0)

They stare at each other across the hall as if time has frozen or rewound.

Moira looks the same, exactly the same, and seeing her again would be difficult enough if it wasn’t here and now. Angela understands all the horrible implications at once: Moira is Talon. Moira is a monster. Moira is responsible for Amélie and Mondatta and all the rest and _was she already rotten back then, what did Angela let into her bed—?_

The room is too dimly lit for her to see Moira’s face properly, but Moira takes a step toward her and the spell is broken. Angela is stumbling backward and reaching up to activate her communicator and inform the others when Moira _disappears_ , and then—

_and then—_

She opens her (not her) mouth, but suddenly her breath is gone. Her (not her) hand is no longer obeying the screaming impulses of her mind; it has frozen on its way up to her ear. She stares at it.

She needs to tell someone. She needs to tell Tracer and Reaper and Winstowmaker—

The lack of oxygen is fast becoming an issue, but her lungs are not working. Breathing has been involuntary her whole life, and now when it matters it’s up to her and she can’t do it. When she was eleven and furious with her parents she went to the ocean to drown her problems and it nearly ended up drowning her too, when the undertow caught her, and when she was eleven her foster father liked to make comments about her weight and she started skipping lunch, and when she was twelve the foster family was different but the pain was the same, and when she was twelve her father deteriorated fast and the doctor gave a prognosis that sentenced her too—

“ _Stop it!”_

She remembers how to breathe and her breath comes out in a scream, but the scream makes it worse because the voice is not hers.

She is (holding) Angela. She is (kissing) Angela. She is (seeing) Angela in a dark hallway in a UN building in Brussels, and there was someone else across from her, and now there is nobody there.

But there is.

She takes a step, but the ground is further away than she remembers it being. She trips over her own foot. She has always been woefully uncoordinated; the first time she saw Amélie Lacroix dance she felt awe and envy that anyone could move with such precision, and it felt _good_ to do the things she did to Amélie.

“ _No!”_

The sounds of Amélie’s screams are ringing in her ears and memory now, though she has never heard them before. She held Angela and held Amélie and pulled—them—both—apart—

Two bodies, two beings, crash onto the floor. Angela is shaking like a leaf in a windstorm. She heaves for breaths and discovers that her body obeys her again. She’s _drenched_ in sweat.

She looks up into a face she knows quite well, one that reflects the horror and confusion she’s feeling. Judging from the look on her face, Moira doesn’t know what just happened either.

Angela tries to stand up, but vertigo catches her, and she falls again in a dead faint.

* * *

“What happened?”

The team back at Gibraltar greets them off the transport, and their faces all reflect the same concern that Angela saw on Lena’s face when she found her. They are used to seeing their Doctor Ziegler as composed and in control, and now she is deathly pale and shaking and moving so haltingly that Lena is helping her down onto the landing pad.

When Angela fails to respond, Reinhardt turns to Lena, who glances between the two of them and then says—quietly, as though Angela’s ears are the problem—, “She won’t talk.”

It’s true; she hasn’t said a word. She is certain that when she speaks, the voice will not be her own.

* * *

She can’t sleep. Her mind is replaying the mission’s events over and over again, tracing the tracks that will become trenches of horrifying memory. She is awash in thoughts and feelings and memory and no longer sure what pieces are hers.

Many times she has thought about seeing Moira again, and she knew it would be bad, but she never could have imagined it would be...this.

She abruptly sits up in bed, furious with herself. She is not a child, to be terrified of smoke and shadows. Her mind and body are _hers._ And in a furious assertion of that she leans back against the headboard and shoves a hand under the waistband of her loose pajama shorts.

Her fingers on her clit feel good for the first few strokes.

Then she is watching herself, naked and legs spread for the pleasure of the voyeur, fucking herself on her own fingers. She is murmuring encouragement in a low, husky voice.

Such a good girl, Angela.

She wants to scream but cannot scream. She left the lights on because she did not want to imagine Moira in the shadows, but it doesn’t matter because she’s _there, anyway, she’s inside her head and she’s watching—_

The tile floors of the old Watchpoint are frigid on her bare feet, but she stumbles through the halls to the infirmary nonetheless. Her breaths come ragged and she feels dizzy and unstable. Her legs should be longer. This is not her body. Her body is not her own.

* * *

Athena betrays her privacy, and Lúcio and Jesse arrive first and pull the scalpel from her eager fingers. She tries to fight them off but her arms are weak and her hands slippery from the blood. She isn’t quite sure what she cut but knows it wasn’t enough.

“Get off,” she tries to say, and her voice is garbled. They are looking at her like they’ve never seen her properly. Perhaps they realize they are not looking at Angela Ziegler at all.

She must finish the job. She must _get her out._

**Author's Note:**

> Comments always greatly appreciated!


End file.
